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Students look online to learn event management and support the workers fighting Covid-19 crisis

中文摘要 / Summary in Chinese

A group of Year 3 IFTM students in the Tourism Event Management Bachelor Degree Programme is creating online activities to help the community cope with the Covid-19 crisis. The ‘Love Connects 藝情戰疫情’ series is also an expression of the community’s admiration for workers on the front line fighting the pandemic.

The undergraduates are arranging the activities as part of the IFTM course ‘Event Management: Hosting an Event’. The course is meant to give students the knowledge and practical skills required to plan, organise and stage events. The course stresses project management, including effective planning, budgeting and scheduling.

This action-oriented course includes an exercise to hold an event, but with physical attendance at classes suspended and most public events in Macao postponed or cancelled, students had to find a novel way to meet the requirement.

Student Sammi Wong is the general manager of the series of activities. Sammi says the students first thought about raising money for medical supplies for places badly affected by the pandemic, but the scarcity of medical supplies worldwide made them think again. They then decided to help the community at large cope with the Covid-19 crisis.

The ‘Love Connects 藝情戰疫情’ activities are meant to span virtually the gaps created between people by social distancing and build stronger relationships. The activities are held through Facebook and Instagram.

The activities have included live musical performances, a workshop on making candles and a charity sale. The students will give the net proceeds to the Caritas Macau charity.

The art of admiration

Another activity in the ‘Love Connects 藝情戰疫情’ series is a drawing contest, which is now taking entries. The contestants should submit their drawings by 6 p.m. on 17 April.

Sammi says: “Our main goal is to attract not only participants skilled in drawing. We also want to attract people wishing to express their gratitude to front-line personnel.”

The contestants are divided into 4 categories: primary school pupils, secondary school pupils, students at institutions of tertiary education, and others. The community online will decide the winners by casting votes between 18 and 27 April. The students will then compile the entries in an album, which will be dedicated to front-liners in the effort to counter Covid-19.

Sammi says putting on an event online is a novelty for the students taking ‘Event Management: Hosting an Event’ and for the academic staff teaching it. “As highlighted by our lecturer, the main point is that, as long as we try our best, we will all learn something new, no matter what the outcome of the project will be,” she says. “Putting on a virtual event is no easier than putting on an actual event but that doesn’t mean we can’t do it.”

The students are divided into groups and each group has its own task. The general manager and a deputy general manager oversee the project. There is a public relations team, a sales and marketing team, a design team, an administration and finance team, and a social media team to manage posts to Facebook and Instagram.

“We had never learned how to organise an online event,” Sammi says. “Still, we decided to try it. We are all learning a lot. There are difficulties but we are finding ways to push through”.

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